Update on the baking club at school

Cooking Discussions Baking, Sweets
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There are 92 members in the Google Classroom. Typically about 20-25 show up for activities. I’ve had them RSVP for them because I need a ballpark idea of how much of whatever I need. I always get some extra because, well, high schoolers. . . and there always are others who just roll in without having responded.

We had a bake sale that started this morning before school and then I just sold throughout the day in my classes, in the hall when classes were changing, and on my hall duty. We made $297 which shocked the hell out of the person in charge of the sports/club accounts. We now have over $1000 in the account. I don’t even know what to do with that. We are doing a cookie swap for the last meeting of the year. That won’t cost the club anything in terms of supplies other than paper plates and aluminum foil.

I want to get back in the kitchen in January. I’m thinking of making homemade marshmallows, having them set overnight, and then serving them with hot chocolate the next morning. We have a “share bin” in the cafeterias. The law involving school lunch is that students have to take a fruit and/or vegetable. Students who don’t want them are encouraged to put them into the bin for others to take rather than throwing them away. The extras go to the life skills class but she can’t use everything so they offered to share with the club. I’m trying to come up with something doable with apples, carrots, oranges, etc.

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2025: The Year in Review
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Morning Glory Muffins? Shredding the apple/carrot is the time-consuming part.
1 ¼ cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cup flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups grated carrots - about 12 oz baby cut or 6 medium, peeled & trimmed
½ cup raisins / craisins
½ cup coconut
½ cup diced raw apple

Combine sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla in large bowl; mix well and set aside. In another bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir into egg mixture, stirring only until moistened (don’t over stir). Gently fold in carrots, raisins, coconut and apple. Spoon into WELL-greased muffin tins – spray PAM for baking (with flour) and use wax paper or brush to spread well - about 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees (F) for 25 - 30 minutes, until light golden brown.
Makes 16-18 full sized muffins

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What are you baking? February 2026
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Orange Cranberry Walnut bread - This bakes an hour, so may be beyond your time constraints
(recipe came from CH Querencia as a narrative. I reformatted to make it easier for me to use – great bread / toast)
Orange Cranberry Walnut bread

1 C walnuts, chopped (Use food processor)
16 oz. (bag) fresh or frozen cranberries, roughly chopped briefly in food processor (not pureed)

3 C flour, total (1 C flour tossed with walnuts/cranberries, 2 C flour with final stir)

1 navel orange, sliced then chopped to liquify, using food processor
- use whole orange, rind and all
1/3 C. softened butter
1 large egg
1 C. sugar
34 C. milk
3 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 loaf pans and line them with parchment or waxed paper

Chop 1 cup of walnuts using food processor
Chop a 16 oz bag of cranberries just for a couple of seconds, not to puree but to chop.

Mix cranberries and walnuts with 1 cup of flour and set aside.

In food processor, process 1 whole navel orange (cut into pieces first), then add 1 large egg, 1/3 C softened butter, 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup milk, 3 tsp baking powder, and ¾ tsp salt. Process to combine. Pour into large bowl. Add 2 cups flour. Add the floured cranberries and walnuts.

Place batter in 2 greased loaf pans lined with parchment/waxed paper. Bake at 350* about 1 hour. When done and cool, wrap in foil for 24 hours before slicing. This bread freezes well.

Use to make toast. Slice it thick so it doesn’t crumble. Good with butter or cream cheese

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Candied orange peel
Dried apple slices

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5

Pickle the carrot!
Not sure if hot vinegar brine is enough to sanitize the carrot; I bet others (@ricepad?) know.

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No, but you can always process them or just treat them as refrigerator pickles.

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Great idea. I just did something similar for my own breakfasts and didn’t come up with it for the club. Ugh. That’s a great way to use both apples and carrots.

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8

Oh here we go. Darwin help me. The students decided they wanted to make homemade cinnamon rolls. I’ve done the Bravetart recipe many times. Sooooooo that’s what we are going with. The rolls have an overnight rise and I don’t want to be at school 2 days in a row for 2 hours after we get done so this is the plan:

  1. I will make the dough tonight here at my apartment. The knead time is like 20-25 minutes so I’d rather just get it done here, keep it in the fridge overnight and for most of the time at work, and then take it out to come to room temp awhile before school ends.

  2. The students who signed up will get to the life skills class ASAP to make the cinnamon filling and frosting and then roll/assemble the rolls. They will proof in the fridge overnight.

  3. They bake for an hour so I will get them going at the start of 7th period and ask the life skills teacher to just keep an eye and remove the foil after the 45 minute mark.

  4. Those who participated will attend the next day to frost warm cinnamon rolls and either enjoy them then or take them home.

I am afraid that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew but hey we shall see. I also am going to bring all of my stuff back here dirty to just run through the dishwasher. I will have to hand-wash (or get some students) the stuff that stays in that classroom.

The next project the students want to do is a Valentine’s cupcake decorating contest. I haven’t gotten around to searching Pinterest just yet but I will after I get through this adventure.

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I love these periodic updates!

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10

I was thinking the same, but no guts, no glory! And to throw yet another cliche into the mix, that which does not kill you yada yada yada.

I’d be tempted to keep an eye out for those that are not pulling their weight and assign them clean up duty.

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Impressive planning. Your student club is VERY fortunate to have such a thoughtful leader, willing to make this happen.

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12

Yay!

I can’t edit my post but I mean on Day 2 (Wed) they will frost and have them. This is NOT going to be a 3 day project. The stipend isn’t enough for that! hahaha

I just hauled a bunch of my supplies out to the car. I will bring another bag down tomorrow when I leave for work. I know the life skills class has a lot of supplies but I didn’t get a chance to get down there today to check everything out.

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So overall the cinnamon roll project was a success. It took me a bit to get everything set up yesterday as I thought there was an outlet where there definitely wasn’t but we managed to make it all work. The students did a great job of using the mixers, rolling out the dough, and assembling/cutting the rolls. I got out of there about an hour and 15 minutes after I normally would leave.

Today I had to be creative with baking them and had to do the hour in 2 different segments. Obviously not ideal but I had to do what I could do. The students were waiting for me by the time I had packed up my stuff and got to the other classroom. The rolls were baked but not yet browned so I told them they’d have to hang out for 10 or 15 minutes. The majority did. When they were ready a couple of members did the frosting and then everyone helped themselves. Lots of smiles and nothing was left. It was a success!

I would definitely do this project again next year. I learned how to streamline some things. It wasn’t expensive. ($44 for ingredients) And they really seemed to have fun.

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Amazing!

I often fantasize about teaching cooking, so I’m living vicariously through you here :wink:

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I teach biology. The Baking Club is an after-school thing for which I get paid $600 for the entire year. I didn’t even seek it out but the previous advisor is pregnant so she gave it up. My coworkers know I’m always cooking and baking so an asst. principal called me up in the summer and asked me to do it.

It is a lot of work (obviously since it is my first year) but it is fun. I wish they would bring back cooking classes at the high school level. I could work for another 15 years doing that. They’ve brought back like a combo wood/auto shop course. Maybe that will be next.

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It’d be great for them to learn how delicious from scratch baking turns out, to look for browning or testing with a digital thermometer.

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Great report, congratulations on pulling it off!

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Yay! Biology has been my favorite since taking it in high school!

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no, i know it’s your not your regular gig! i’ve been following along closely :slight_smile:

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and agree with you about teaching cooking in high school. sheesh, so important a topic.

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